Boston Borough Council has been handed more than £1 million to help with integration in the town.

The £1.39 million from central government’s Controlling Migration Fund will promote community cohesion with other organisations through projects such as improving access to English lessons and bolstering advice services.

Funds from the grant will also go towards tackling rogue landlords and anti-social behaviour in and around the town.

Boston and Skegness MP Matt Warman, who has backed the funding, said: “From taking on rogue landlords and anti-social behaviour to helping Boston Stump unite our community, this major government boost recognises the unique challenges Boston has faced.

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"I am very pleased that Boston Borough Council has won this ambitious funding bid, and I congratulate all of the team involved in it.

"While immigration has brought benefits to the area and our local economy, the population growth in such a short space of time has put significant pressure on public services – that’s why I lobbied ministers for additional funding to help to relieve pressure and brought Lord Bourne to see our specific situation.

"I look forward to supporting the council’s work using this money to unlock further resources and improve housing and foster greater community cohesion.”

Officials in the town have had to work hard to respond to the increase in immigration there since the expansion of the European Union more than a decade ago.

In a sign of the impact those pressures are having, the constituency had the highest percentage vote in favour of leaving the EU in last year's Brexit referendum.

Boston Borough Council leader Michael Cooper said the area had been awarded the money in recognition of the impact that migration has had locally.

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He added: “Our partnership will focus on doing things that our residents have told us are important to them.

"We will use the funding to bring people together in various ways including through sport, events and making the most of our physical assets like St Botolph’s Church.

“We will extend the availability of advice services, enforcement capacity, community leadership and volunteering opportunities and importantly, we will support the development of English language skills to support people communicate effectively with public services to help save time and money and increase efficiency and effectiveness”.

"The funding will allow the council to continue and expand our award winning work to tackle rogue landlords and improve housing locally.

"It will also enable us to work with the Stump on their ‘A Passion for People’ project’, to help improve English language skills across the migrant community, as well as improving integration between the various communities who call Boston home.”

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Communities Minister Lord Bourne, who visited Boston earlier this year to see the challenges faced by the town for himself, said: “It’s great to see so many projects tackling the problems of poor integration in their communities by, for example, allowing migrants to unlock the benefits of good English. This will create stronger relationships between neighbours and unlock better services for all."

Commenting on the Fund nationally, communities secretary and MP Sajid Javid said: “New arrivals can be a great asset to Britain - boosting the local workforce and economy.

"But in some places population change in a short space of time has put pressure on local services. We’re clear there are things we can do to address these problems.

"This new funding will help councils rise to the challenge of reducing the impact of migration on local communities in a variety of ways – whether that’s tackling the small minority of landlords who damage neighbourhoods with overcrowded properties, providing English language classes to ensure effective integration rather than reliance on translation services, or tackling serious organised crime and exploitative employers.”